Yes, you did - thanks. More useful to Scion than to me; the landknechte will make only small appearances in Schattenlander until I get the entire original game replicated; wars and soldiers appear there pretty much only as backdrops, and as unrealized incomplete code fragments found once I dissected the original.

Eventually I do intend to make the world more dynamic, with cities rebelling, going to war, etc., and they'll come up more once I do that... but that's only very theoretical at this point, I've got plenty on my plate getting to the first-stage goal.

Caer_Baer

Thanks, everybody. Over the next couple of days I'll split the content in here up into the various threads I've got planned.

Just to respond to the points above:

Tougher and less numerous enemies - there will be several of these, yes; the encounters we happen to have put in so far are generally the opposite type, moderately tough but more-numerous-than-the-PCs. And recommendation noted. But the arrogant nobleman's knight, or one to two tatzelwurms, or the Wild Hunt, will be more than a challenge, no worries.

Nerfing bow damage and other missile weapons is probably a good idea; they were useful in the original, but only if you concentrated fire from several people and/or had someone in melee holding them at bay.

I'm not sure what you mean by the armour recommendation, but now that I've got a subforum the "weapons and armour round table" will be one of the first new threads we'll pursue, and you can go into that more there.

The original background pics - we've got 'em! In readable format! And we know (thanks to Maw) how to bring them in-game. I'm just too busy with the guts of the mod still, to do the interesting but repetitive work involved. Oh, for a willing volunteer to do the bringing-in-game process... it would require no previous expertise...

I've put a lot of thought into how I'm going to incorporate the nonhuman monsters; it'll use a variety of tricks, but should all be doable. (Spiders are the worst; no idea how I'm gonna do a decent job of giant spiders in the current system.) I've already committed to having at least one nonhuman encounter fully incorporated in the v0.2 release.

Hellequin:I was wondering if any more thought had been given to using my "Realistic Combat Model" for weapon and armor values. It is now operational in ONR (the relatively bug-free version releases today), and Beta for Mesoamerica and Holy War. That means I could find time over the next three or four days, if you want to attempt a conversion.

For anyone who missed this:The RCM was developed in the interest of historical realism for Onin-no-Ran. It is, to my knowledge, the most accurate portrayal of ancient weapon damage that I could create, considering the limitations of the M&B game engine. This quest for combat realism in computer games very much owes its start to the original Darklands (despite DL having some bad errors in this field, it came closer than anything else in its day), so my interest in this project is substantial. Not to mention, it helps the game - combat scenes in vanilla had no tactics at all.

Anyway, who's interested in testing a conversion to the RCM? I'm offering to do the work.

If you send me a one-page summary of the details of the change, I'll think about it; haven't had time to try it out in ONR yet, though I have every intention of doing so at some point. Personally, "realism" is a far smaller priority than playability; playability includes verisimilitude, but that's only a single factor in it - I'm no history buff, nor particularly an armamentophile. And I have my suspicions about the interaction of your model with the style of play I envision out of Schattenlander, which is why I'm not immediately taking you up on the offer (though I'm grateful the offer was made).

As I commented when we were PMing about this, my focus on wounds has been to set in place the infrastructure which will allow me to build a parallel structure beside hit points which has longer-lasting impact and statistical effects. The full implementation will necessarily have to wait until I can detect where the player's been hit, but even now I have in place (as part of the code required to make Eater Water potions work) a continual every-short-interval check on hit points; detecting a sudden drop and translating that into odds of an immediate wound effect is an easy next step. And this, to me, is a more interesting angle on "combat realism" - blood loss, broken limbs, and the whole visceral nine yards of medical horror story.

PS: Ron, given your clear predilections, if you do not already possess a copy of The Riddle of Steel, then a tragedy has occurred. I can't recommend that game strongly enough, and I say this from an extremely knowledgeable perspective on the RPG product space.

Remember DL's tagline: "Reality is more terrifying than fantasy." Reality is more playable than fantasy, too.

The vote on ONR, and the Mesoamerica and Holy War betas, all say that this improves game play substantially. It adds some tactics, reduces weapon inflation - makes people choose between faster and higher damage, like the original DL did. Makes armor more valuable, also like DL did. Makes the distinction between raw killing power and armor penetration more distinct - again something the original DL started. These add a lot to the game, instead of everybody just getting a weapon that does 10 points of damage and trying to hit the other guy four times before he hits you four times, like something out of "space invaders".

I'm all for the proposed changes to healing time and statistics damage from wounds. Those were something I did not have the skill to implement, and if you get them working, several other mods would love to incorporate that as well. I still figure that is a moot point when an unarmored man can take four hits from a great sword and keep fighting... what good is long-term wounding if the weapons are apparently made of rubber? Fix the obvious problem first, and work down.

If I tried to describe the RCM in text, it would take days ... and when I finished, it would take a week with pencil and paper to make sense of what I said. A lot of messing with the numbers, using the cut and pierce attributes in strange ways to tweak the chances of somebody going down from a given number of injuries. Let's just say that the result is statistically accurate damage, based on crime reports, injuries on animals and people I have seen or referenced, and combat wounding studies, plus test cuts against armor. The bibliography alone would be several pages long. There are a couple of "short answer" summaries of the statistical model in the "Combat Realism Model" thread on ONR, but highly incomplete.

Instead of a one-page summary, let's do it the other way. Send me a copy of the source code. (No, I don't want to steal it or give it to anybody else - I had this discussion with AW over at TLD, who is paranoid somebody will get his source code.) I'll make changes, and send back the item data file & source. I only need to change the item_kinds1.txt (module_items.py) file - it won't hurt anything else. You can play it, and run it by some beta testers, and see what everybody thinks. Compare the two. The real proof is in the game, after all - right?

If the vote is no, then no hard feelings. I'm confident enough this will be popular that I'm willing to write it up. (Translation - I want to play this mod, but I consider the vanilla combat model such a turn-off that I will probably not, unless some serious changes are made. Conveniently, those changes were already developed, and are standing by.)

The inspiration for this model owes a lot to the original DL - I feel it only fitting to complete the circle, and return it to DL's successor here.

Put the module system into a .zip file and e-mail it. (Ronlosey@hotmail.com) Give me two days ... 48 hours, and I'll have you something that will blow your socks off. I guarantee it.

I'm not paranoid that you'll steal the source code - but my source code, taken as a whole, is a scary, scary thing to face. There are almost twice as many module_xx files in Schattenlander now (even at 0.1d) as there are in Native, and over 300 scripts as compared with 44. And, alas, there are big streaks of legacy code from pre-0.1a running like bruises through the whole thing, which would just make it even more confusing. I'll send you module_items.py, though; the constructions I've used for the enhanced weapons are quite well commented, you'll need to mirror whatever changes you make across those.

I'm surprised you can't sum up the changes algorithmically, though. Surely you need to have a set of heuristics, for how to change a weapon that you've never tinkered with before? That's what I was asking for, when I said "summary of the changes". Math doesn't scare me. And without that summary, I'm still unlikely to incorporate anything; I need to understand it before I can weigh other things (for instance the details of the weapon enhancements, the stats of various new creatures, my wounds system, etc) against it.

Nothing goes into this mod that I don't understand well enough to defend on its own merits; as it stands, I may soon need to go through and do an orgy of further-commenting (and my commenting is generally pretty good), and maybe a formal structural outline of the code, just for my own sake. Adding something that I imperfectly understand to the mix would be doing nobody any favours.

- Hellequin

Seriously, though, and not just as an aside - go order The Riddle of Steel. Forgo food if need be. You'll come back and thank me.

I said to mail me the whole darn module system, so I can make changes in the item file, and then re-compile it for testing. I only need to change item stats, but I have to have everything to make it compile and play, in order to make sure everything is working. Otherwise, I'll make a typo, and never know it.

The math is different for each weapon. If you can find a weapon that I haven't taken a swing at something with, I bet I know somebody who has. It's a nightmare to explain. You send the files, I'll explain later... have to put the material together.

I'll start a thread and put down my explanation of the model, and get questions from anybody interested in testing it / tweaking it / whatever.